Tuesday, September 8, 2015

First,
a note about how the mythology was structured in the seasons. An X-Files season
finale will address some of the questions raised during the season’s mythology
episodes, but then add an entirely new, out-of-left-field element that sets up
a big season premier after the summer hiatus. That premier, usually a
two-parter, set the stage for the following season’s mythology arc. This follows
the good mystery writing advice that for every question you answer, raise two
new ones. So: The 1st season finale confirmed that the government
has evidence of aliens in the form of a fetus, and added the element of the
Human-alien hybrid Project. The 2nd season finale confirmed that
there is a government syndicate of elders working on said Project, and
introduced the idea of vaccinating humans against an unknown virus. The 3rd
season finale explained the shape shifting aliens, and then introduced the idea
that there is a coming colonization that some aliens are opposed to.

This cycle
repeats until the 6th season when the alien colonization arc is
definitively resolved mid-season with “Two Fathers/One Son” where the alien
rebels kill the Project and all the elders except CSM. Now the writers’ trusty
mythology-episode formula is inoperable. There are no more questions the need
answered, and the alien mythology needs an entirely new direction. The finale
provided a new direction with great promise—unfortunately the season 7 follow
up squandered it by being nonsensical and full of cop-outs.

On the
plus side, I loved the concept of the aliens having our genetic code (not
mapped out at the time the episode aired) and the holy texts of all world
religions scrawled on a ancient artifact buried off the coast of Africa. The
mind reels at the possibilities: Humans were not just planted here, but the
aliens also bestowed their creation with religion and culture. Why? And how
does that fact fit with the idea that the aliens are returning to take over the
Earth and potentially kill their creation after we established a global society
and modern infrastructure? These are good, satisfying questions for a sci-fi
series to pose. Also, CSM has a brief scene where he is in a conference room
overseeing a group of men in suits getting up to speed on the alien invasion
plans, essentially reconstituting the Syndicate. An exciting, mind-bending
finale.

Unfortunately,
the season 7 payoff does not pay off. Scully is exhuming the ancient alien
artifact and faces three biblical warnings: a plague of insects, the sea turns
to blood, dead animals and one person comes back to life. Her reaction is that
she is not supposed to gain the knowledge contained in the artifact and she
decides to walk away from it. She returns to the U.S. without any evidence.
Later—after we see a reanimated human corpse!—the massive craft-shaped artifact
is simply gone. No clue as to how it was removed. Was is the government, or
aliens? Did the zombie drag it out to sea? The episode doesn’t tell us.

Even
more nonsensical is Mulder’s illness. Apparently he has had the junk DNA in his
temporal lobe activated much like Gibson Praise (though the episode does not
make this explicit connection to the season 5 episodes) and he is now “more
alive” by becoming “biologically alien.” His brain is so active that his body
can’t respond and he switches from raving lunatic to comatose. In the words of
CSM he has become an “alien-human hybrid…immune to the coming viral
apocalypse.” CSM has his doctors extract the alien DNA from Mulder and inject
it into himself so that he will survive also.

The
reason Mulder was thus altered? A rubbing of the artifact in Africa on a piece
of paper reacted with the latent alien virus that was still in Mulder’s system
since season 4 when he was infected with the Black Oil (in that two-parter
“Tunguska/ Terma” where he went to Russia with Krycek and was captured in the gulag).

So now
we have the kind of not-so-good questions that indicate a sci-fi series is not
telling a coherent story. How did a piece of paper turn Mulder into an
alien-human hybrid, the thing that took the Syndicate 25 years and countless
abductions to fabricate? If Mulder’s exposure to the alien virus is the answer,
then why wasn’t Scully affected by the same piece of paper? She was infected
with the virus too, and worse. When Mulder was splashed with the Black Oil, it
crawled into his skin, but he was shown in the next scene none the worse for
ware. But when Scully was infected we actually saw an alien baby sucked out of
her mouth. The rubbing did not affect her.

Furthermore,
in the previous big mythology episode, we learned that the alien invasion is thwarted
because the rebels are winning. Their victory was made apparent when they
killed all the members of the Syndicate and stole the alien fetus that was the
center of the Project. Why does CSM act as though that did not happen and the
“coming viral apocalypse” is still on schedule? This too is ignored.

The 6th
season finale cements an X-Files cliché that has Mulder going crazy. At the end
of season 2 he was suffering extreme paranoia because CSM was drugging him. At
the end of season 4 he suffers depression and we are left to believe he
actually commits suicide. Season 6 ends with him committed in a padded room. The
fact that he is going crazy yet again would be excusable if the reason for it
made sense. In this case it does not. Nor does it add anything to his
character. By the end of the follow up two-parter, the alien DNA is extracted
from him and he returns to his normal self. It was all just a contrivance to
put Mulder in danger in time for another cliffhanger.

And that is why shows like The X-Files run out of steam about this
point in their life cycles. You cannot tell stories of a global-to-cosmic scale
without having something interesting and usually dangerous happen to your main
characters (if you doubt that, try reading Last
and First Men—I cant get through 20 pages.) There are only so many times
you can put your characters through the ringer without it getting ridiculous.

The TV
writer’s first priority is to develop stories that don’t have characters simply
walking from one room to the next or getting stuck in long, talky scenes of
expository dialogue about action happening elsewhere. You have to make sure
your story has something happen to
your characters every 10-15 minutes of screen time no matter what. The second
priority is to connect that action with some larger meaning or significance.
The third and final priority—and here is where it gets hard—is to keep the
action and meaning of this episode consistent to all the mythology episodes
that came before it. A writer is going to care about the first two priorities,
and if the third one doesn’t fit… oh well, my deadline’s coming.

The
trick is to keep the plates spinning. I for one am glad that The X-Files kept
them spinning for 6 years. By season 7, the plates were falling.

Implications
for the new season:

It will
be interesting if Chris Carter radically changes the X-Files mythology formula
described above. There are undoubtedly unanswered questions left over from
Season 7-9. Does he answer them and pile on new questions? Does he ignore them
and try to start new mysteries?

And
what does a 6-episode X-Files season look like--one that we now know will
contain stand alone and alien mythology episodes? Will the first episode
establish a new mythology to be resolved in the sixth episode? Will the sixth
episode contain a cliff hanger?

I’m
reminded of Mathew Weiner’s philosophy when writing Mad Men, a series that he was never sure would get picked up for a
next season. He said that every season they went for broke, never holding any
great twist for a later season, but dumping into the one they were writing. And
every season finale was written as though it was a series finale. Carter should
heed that advice right now.

One
thing I am confident of: the new season will not continue the “TV senility” of
the last few X-Files seasons. This will feel like a fresh, new TV series. It
will be narratively tight and comprehensible. I hope.